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Wednesday, March 9, 2016

The Mast Step Chronicles

Nearly four years' time, an early mis-reading and misunderstanding of the details of the aluminum mast/hardwood plug design, three different sail-plan drawings, at least three instances of not understanding what the drawings showed me, a misunderstanding of the birdsmouth/plug/tenon design details, a failure to recognize the differences between to two mast designs AND huge doses of impatience resulted in my building of four different main mast steps (so far).

From the left:

Original (circa mid-2012) mast step for the gaff-yawl rig with too large a mortise for the intended birsdsmouth mast

First iteration of mast step (circa May 2013) for 105sf main balance lug yawl rig with too large a mortise for the intended birdsmouth mast

Mast step for the 147sf main balance lug yawl rig (circa April 2015) with correct mortise for my mast

Latest (last?) iteration of the 105sf main balance lug yawl rig - with mortise to be cut

My Mom had an expression that aptly describes how this all happened: What you don't have in your head, you have to have in your feet.